Tag Archives: Donald Trump

International news

Kim Jong Un is a ‘smart cookie’?

Donald J. Trump is locked in a battle of wits with a young dictator who is threatening to launch a nuclear attack against the United States of America.

So, how does the president refer to Kim Jong Un? He calls him a “smart cookie.”

That is such an interesting term to ascribe to someone who starves his people while spending a grotesquely inordinate amount of money building up North Korea’s conventional weapons arsenal and also while seeking to become a nuclear power.

Trump said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “And at a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I’m sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else.”

He added: “And he was able to do it. So obviously, he’s a pretty smart cookie.”

Smart cookie. That’s a term one might use to describe, oh, a nephew or niece who’s just been named to a high school honor roll, or perhaps to a small business owner whose company survived a serious economic downturn.

The term “smart cookie” isn’t something most of us would attach to a murderous dictator.

I kind of prefer the president use terms that are a good bit more descriptive, such as, say, “cunning killer,” or “ham-handed tyrant,” or perhaps “ruthless bastard.”

national news, political news

‘Most divisive speech ever’ by a president

David Gergen is no squishy liberal. The CNN political analyst has worked — in order — for Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.

Three of the four are Republicans. I believe Gergen calls himself a member of the GOP.

But then he said something about Donald J. Trump’s speech Saturday night in Harrisburg, Pa. While commenting on the speech in a CNN interview, Gergen called it the “most divisive speech” he’d ever heard from a sitting U.S. president.

Pay attention, Mr. President. One of your own has called you out.

Campaign rhetoric doesn’t fly

The speech was full of red meat for Trump’s political base. He made the trip to Harrisburg after deciding he wouldn’t attend the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, becoming the first sitting president since Ronald Reagan to skip the event. Then again, President Reagan had a good reason: He was recovering from a gunshot wound in 1981 after John Hinckley tried to assassinate him.

One can expect criticism of Trump’s speech from Democrats. They’re still steamed that Trump beat their candidate in 2016. I share their outrage, truth be told, which is why I spend so much of my energy on this blog with criticism of the president. I doubt I’ll let up any time soon — if ever!

That such criticism comes from a longstanding Republican — and a former key adviser to three GOP presidents, including the revered godfather of political conservatives, Reagan — gives it even more punch.

Trump surely will dismiss it. He’ll say that Gergen doesn’t matter. Neither does CNN, in Trump’s view.

So the war against the media and — everyone who disagrees with the president — will go on … and on … and on.

media news

‘Fake news,’ Mr. President? You, of all people, call it ‘fake’?

I have grown so very weary of hearing the president of the United States refer to the “mainstream media” as purveyors of what he calls “fake news.”

Imagine the stones that Donald John Trump seems to be packing around.

This is the guy who perpetuated the lie that Barack H. Obama was likely born in Kenya, that he wasn’t a “natural born” U.S. citizen and, thus, was ineligible to run for the presidency.

He also talked about how he witnessed “thousands of Muslims” cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

Then he talked about how he read in the National Enquirer that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father was seen having dinner with Lee Harvey Oswald, the guy who murdered President Kennedy; Trump wondered out loud whether Cruz Sr. was somehow complicit in the heinous crime.

He then accused the president of wiretapping his campaign offices at Trump Tower.

Those are just four examples of the fake news he has promoted. There are other instances, too, but you get the point … I hope.

Donald Trump has no business — none at all — accusing anyone in the media of promoting “fake news.” His definition of “fake news” is reporting that paints him in a negative light. However, the term “fake” carries with it an implication that the media are reporting falsehoods.

He has yet to provide any semblance, any inkling of evidence of what he keeps implying about the media.

He won’t stop. He won’t relent on this hideous attack on the media.

This president’s hubris plays well with those who support him, those who cheer him for “telling it like it is.” It simply makes me sick.

national news, political news

Hey Dems, don’t be obstructionists, too!

I’ve spent a lot of emotional energy with this blog bashing congressional Republicans for what I believe has been their obstructionist habits as they dealt with a Democratic president, Barack H. Obama.

My sense of fairness compels me to instruct congressional Democrats to avoid following their GOP colleagues’ lead as they now must deal with a Republican in the White House, Donald J. Trump.

I understand that the roles aren’t entirely parallel.

For much of Obama’s time as president, Republicans controlled at least one congressional chamber. They took control of the entire Capitol Building after the 2014 elections. I remember, too, when Sen. Mitch McConnell, then the minority leader, declared his No. 1 priority was to make Obama a “one-term president.”

The GOP fought the president along every step. Republicans opposed the president’s economic stimulus package right out of the chute in 2009; they opposed the Affordable Care Act; they — along with a handful of Democrats — resisted calls for new laws on guns even after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 20 first- and second-graders.

The GOP now controls Congress and the White House.

What’s left for Democrats? They’re angry (a) over the way Republicans treated Barack Obama and (b) that they lost the 2016 election that every pundit in the country seemed to think was in the bag for them.

Is obstructionism the way to go? No. For one thing, Democrats are operating from a much weaker position this time than Republicans had when Barack Obama took office.

Still, some congressional Democrats are insisting that they intend to block the president and his fellow Republicans in Congress. They don’t intend to work with their “friends” on the other side. Some Democratic lawmakers have declared their intention is to ensure that Trump gets impeached.

Government isn’t supposed to be an ideological battleground. It’s supposed to serve the people whose votes put politicians in office. There surely ought to be ways for Democrats can look for common ground with Republicans. Need they surrender their principles? Not any more than Republicans should surrender theirs.

I feel as though I should remind Democrats — just as I reminded Republicans during the Obama years — that many of us out here want government to be a functioning body. We want government to enact smart legislation. We insist that members of the House and Senate hue to the principle of good government.

And good government, by definition, means that it works on behalf of those of us who pay for it.

national news

That’s not how you ‘unify’ the nation, Mr. President

A roomful of journalists and other luminaries gathered in Washington last night while the president of the United States — who usually attends this event — was up the coast a bit in Harrisburg, Pa.

The White House Correspondent Dinner was spiced with lots of criticism of the president. For his part, Donald Trump decided to unload on the media, his political foes and virtually every American who voted for someone else during the 2016 presidential election.

Who bears the greater responsibility to set aside the bitterness? I believe it ought to be the president. He’s the one who represents the entire country.

The president’s Harrisburg speech could have been lifted directly from one of his campaign speeches. He is talking directly to his base. He is speaking to those who continue to support him despite all the questions, controversy and potential scandal that threaten to swallow the presidency.

Trump vowed to unify the country. The speech last night suggested he is doing precisely the opposite. He wants to keep fomenting the anger that propelled him to power.

Divisiveness is alive and well

We all understand that the 2016 campaign will go down as among the most rancorous in U.S. political history. Do the wounds need to continue festering? I don’t think so.

When the president calls the media “the enemy of the American people” and when he continues to hold campaign-style rallies — while exhorting security personnel to “get them out!” when protesters show up — that does nothing to bring Americans together.

The divisions run deep. The wounds still hurt. The president of the United States holds the key to bridge the divide and heal the wounds. When will he step up?

media news

No surprise that POTUS skips correspondents dinner

The White House Correspondents Association is having its annual dinner tonight.

One of the normal attendees is missing. That would be the president of the United States. Are you surprised? Me neither.

Donald J. Trump has declared the media to be the “enemy of the people.” He has accused the media of peddling “fake news.” He said just today that the media have “purposely” reported “negatively” his first 100 days in office.

Did anyone really expect the president to stand before a large banquet room full of media representatives, wisecrack his way through a routine, slap a few backs as if he really harbors no ill feelings toward the media? Of course not!

What the president has done, of course, is attack an institution that was guaranteed protection from government bullying and coercion. That guarantee is written explicitly in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That has not mattered to the president, who has banned certain media outlets access to his administration and scolded certain media members harshly in public for allegedly reporting falsehoods.

How ironic it is. You’ll recall that in 2011 Trump — then just a mere real estate mogul and reality TV celebrity — sat among the media at a White House correspondents dinner. That was the event in which President Barack Obama poked fun at Trump, needling him for promoting the “fake news” about the president’s place of birth and assorted other mistruths. He did all that, by the way, on the same day he ordered the CIA-Navy SEAL operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.

Hey, maybe Donald Trump believes Barack Obama’s act is too difficult to follow, given the former president’s impeccable comic timing. Nah, probably not.

Maybe the president will bury the hatchet with the media and recognize publicly that the media have a job to do, which is to hold public officials — including the president of the United States — accountable for their actions and decisions.

legal news

Break up the 9th U.S. Circuit? C’mon, get real

Donald J. Trump keeps ratcheting up his open combat with the federal judicial system.

The president wants to break up the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because — doggone it, anyway! — the judges keep issuing rulings with which he disagrees.

Poor guy. That’s how it goes sometimes, Mr. President.

The 9th Circuit has ruled against the president’s ban on refugees seeking entry into this country from majority-Muslim countries. That just won’t stand in Trump’s world. So his solution is to dismember the court, which is based in San Francisco and is considered to be arguably the most liberal appellate court in the federal judicial network.

He said lawyers shop for friendly judicial venues and the president believes the 9th Circuit is a favorite forum to hear cases pitting the federal government against anyone else.

Give me a break.

Conservative courts have ruled against liberal presidents. Indeed, liberal courts have ruled against conservative presidents as well. Have presidents of either stripe been so thin-skinned that they’ve sought to break up an appellate court? Not until this one took office.

Leave the court alone, Mr. President.

A better option for the president would be to craft laws that can withstand judicial challenge. Federal judges in Hawaii, Washington state and Maryland all have found sufficient fault with the Trump administration’s effort to ban refugees to rule against them. Appellate judges have upheld the lower court rulings.

In a strange way this kind of reminds me of when President Franklin Roosevelt sought to tinker with the federal judiciary by “packing” the U.S. Supreme Court with justices more to his liking; he sought to expand the number of justices on the nation’s highest court. He didn’t succeed — thank goodness.

To be sure, Trump isn’t the only recent president to bully the federal judiciary. Barack Obama called out the Supreme Court while delivering a State of the Union speech in 2010 over its Citizens United ruling that allowed unlimited political contributions by corporations. The president was wrong to do so — in that venue — with the justices sitting directly in front of him.

The nation’s founders sought to establish an independent federal judiciary that ostensibly should be immune from political pressure. The president is seeking to bully the court system through a number of methods: He calls out judges individually and criticizes the courts’ decisions openly and with extreme harshness.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals needs to remain intact and the president needs to live with the consequences of how it interprets the U.S. Constitution.

national news

No, Mr. Trump, first 100 days not quite so good

2 Comments

Dear Mr. President,

I read your tweets this morning in which you excoriated the “mainstream fake media” for its reporting of your first 100 days as president of the United States.

With all due respect, sir, you are wrong, the media are correct.

Your first 100 days haven’t been the greatest in the history of the presidency as you have stated.

The attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act failed; your effort to ban entry for those from Muslim-majority countries has been struck down twice by the federal courts; you haven’t touched the North American Free Trade Agreement, which you vowed to repeal on “day one” of your presidency.

Sure, you’ve signed a ton of executive orders. But you seem to have ignored the criticism you leveled at Barack H. Obama for governing at times via executive fiat. His doing it was wrong, but your doing it is right? Are we supposed to believe that, sir?

You’ve gotten into those snits with our allies in Australia, Germany, Mexico and Canada. You’ve decided to launch a trade war — for crying out loud! — with Canada over milk and lumber imports. That leads to success? I don’t think so.

Don’t get me wrong, Mr. President. Your dismal first 100 days doesn’t mean you’re doomed to a failed presidency. You can still have success going on from here. I hope you do succeed, sir, but success in my view depends on whether you’re going to work with Democrats in Congress.

I’ve tried to drive home the point in this blog, sir, that governing is a bipartisan team sport. It is far different than campaigning for high office. Sure, your base still loves you. I am not one of those who voted for you. I wanted Hillary to win.

Here’s the thing: You’re my president, too. I consider you to be duly elected. However, I expect you to take my concerns under consideration as you decide which policies to push.

You vowed to “unite the country.” You haven’t done it, Mr. President.

So, please stop bragging via Twitter about your self-proclaimed fantastic success. You are imagining it, sir.

The reality out here is quite different. Many of us are frightened about what the immediate future might bring.

Listen to us as intently as you listen to those who continue to stand tall behind you.

Oh, and one more thing: Stop bragging about winning the 2016 election. We get it. True leaders look forward — to the future.

national news, political news

Stand tall, David Frum

David Frum has emerged as my newest favorite conservative thinker/writer/pundit/analyst.

I actually have become enamored over the years with a number of such folks: William F. Buckley, William Safire, Peggy Noonan, George F. Will, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, Jennifer Rubin all come to mind. They are great thinkers, solid in their beliefs, but not crazy.

Now we have David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He’s also a persistent critic of Donald J. Trump, who’s come along to become president of the United States. He has been astonished — along with many of his fellow Americans — at how wholly unprepared Trump is to serve as president and commander in chief.

The president said in an interview with Reuters that the office to which was elected is tougher than he thought it would be.

Who knew?

Frum’s response — delivered in a series of tweets — is utterly classic.

Here it is. http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/04/28/trump-just-whined-hard-job-bushs-speechwriters-response-epic/

 

Uncategorized

President redefines ‘populism’

I would venture a guess that if one were to ask Donald J. Trump to define “populism” off the cuff that he would say something like: It’s the philosophy on which I campaigned successfully for the presidency of the United States.

Translation: He likely doesn’t understand a philosophy aimed at taking power away from big corporations and the rich folks who run them.

This billionaire real estate mogul and TV celebrity campaigned as a populist, declaring his intention to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement, pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and “work for you, the people.” He would surround himself with the “best people” to run the government and would “drain the swam” of the corporate corruption he said has infected American politics since the beginning of the Industrial Age.

He is governing, though, as anything but a populist.

The president did sign the executive order that took the United States out of TPP. NAFTA? Well, in the span of just a few days he said he would consider pulling out; then he said he wouldn’t after talking to the leaders of Mexico and Canada; then he said he would like to “renegotiate” the treaty. The “best people” surrounding him include a healthy cadre of executives from Goldman Sachs, the big-time investment outfit he criticized freely during the campaign. The “swamp”? It’s still full of muck.

I want to focus for a moment on NAFTA. Free trade is an example of orthodox Republican philosophy with which I agree. I dislike artificial barriers, such as import taxes and tariffs, that inhibit trade, particularly among bordering nations. NAFTA’s intent is to open markets throughout three major nations: the United States, Canada and Mexico. Is it perfect? No. Is it as flawed and “disastrous” as the president has contended? No to that, too.

It has fostered a freer flow of goods across the borders of all three nations and has been a significant net plus for their economies.

I am heartened to sense the president is beginning to understand that campaign rhetoric often must differ with the way one actually governs.

NAFTA is not the bogeyman that Trump called it while winning the presidency.

As for whether he can govern as the populist he portrayed himself as being, I only can point to the weekend lifestyle he still enjoys as he jets off to Mar-a-Lago, his glitzy, glamorous and posh resort in southern Florida.

His attachment to all the decadence associated with it suggests to me that the president is a populist in name only. Hey, maybe we can create a new acronym: PINO.